


Asset 2.0 (Bucky Barnes x Hydra!Reader)

by AnnaeJD



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Agent!Reader, Crime Fighting, Cryofreeze (Marvel), Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hydra (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 16:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13344861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaeJD/pseuds/AnnaeJD
Summary: Nothing much is known about the reader, but the team are sent on a mission to bring back the cryo-pod that she is stuck in. Bucky seems to know the reader from his Hydra days, but can he save her?Total good ending, promise!





	1. Asset 2.0, Part One

**Author's Note:**

> My first series, I hope it's okay

Bucky and Steve hurried through the hallways of a supposedly deserted Hydra base in the snowy climate of Canada. Natasha and Clint stayed behind on the quinjet as backup, the mission wasn’t meant to be particularly dangerous as there had been extensive research into this particular base. Fury had told them of a possible closed cryo pod that was located near the centre of the base, the contents of it were unknown.   
Bucky nods to Steve as they approach a large reinforced iron door. “Natasha.” Steve murmured into his earpiece. “I’ve got it, Captain.” Came the reply.  
After a few moments the door gave off small clicking sounds, indicating Natasha’s success in hacking into the security system. There had been no sign, so far, of any Hydra soldiers and the place was completely covered in dust and cobwebs.  
Bucky kicked the door in as soon as a final loud click was heard and both super soldiers coughed as dust was sent up into the air from the floor of the room. A room that had obviously not been touched in years. Steve walked into it first and scoped the area for any possible traps or threats, finding none he waved a hand at Bucky to come in as well.  
Both soldiers turned their gaze towards a large object directly in the centre of the room and Steve asked Natasha to try and turn on the lights. She gave her affirmative and suddenly the room became blindingly bright.  
“It seems that most of the power is being directed into the centre of the room.” Natasha told them through the earpiece.  
“There’s a dark box here.” Steve replied, putting his shield down by a computer console and taking off the cap that goes with his uniform. “Looks like it can be lit up.” He continued.  
“On it.”   
Bucky walked around the room and noted the similarity to the rooms that he used to be kept in, taking a particular note of the machine in the far corner that was almost identical to the one that was used to wipe his memory over and over again. “Steve.” He called and pointed towards that machine. Steve’s blue eyes softened when he saw it and moved towards Bucky to put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m guessing that’s the cryo pod then.” Bucky said and flicked his head towards the black box.  
The lights within the pod itself then started to flicker on, giving the soldiers brief glimpses of a figure encased in a layer of ice on the inside. Bucky walked around the machine with Steve trailing after him in order to get a look at the face of the figure. They both heard Natasha swearing under her breath as she tried to get the lights to remain on.   
Bucky waited patiently and pushed some hair, that had fallen out of the elastic band, behind his ear before crossing his arms, keeping his eyes on the cryo pod.  
After a minute or so the lights seemed to remain on, meaning that the two men could get a good look at the person in the pod. The lights revealed a woman, one with H/L H/C hair and S/C skin. Although the skin colour had been dulled with years in ice. Her head was slightly tilted back and her arms were an inch or so out from her sides. Her expression gave off the impression of being at peace.   
Steve moved forward and wiped some dust off of a small plaque that was beside the glass door of the pod, he bent down a little and tried to read the inscription. “Asset 2.0, property of Hydra.” He read out and stood up, his eyes going back to the woman.  
Bucky let out a small sigh. “Natasha, is there any information on another Hydra Asset?” He asked and was greeted with the voice of Clint Barton.  
“There was a mention of a lot of experimentation on a lot of different Assets in the files found in a base last November.” He replied and Bucky could hear clicking from Clint’s side. “I swear I saw something about a 2.0.” He mumbled.  
Steve’s eyes widened slightly. “That’s it! The pod says 2.0.” He said.  
Natasha’s voice was next over the earpiece. “Hm, we don’t have access in here, we’ll have to go back to the compound in order to get a look at those files. Set a co-ordinate for that room and then check the rest of the facility, we’ll send an extraction team to collect the cryo pod and keep it operational.”  
______________________

The team, now joined by Tony, Wanda, Vision and Bruce, all stood around the cryo pod. Fury was in front of them and kept his gaze on the contents of the pod for a few minutes before turning his eyes to Wanda. “Any readings?” He asked.  
Wanda closed her eyes for a minute and took a deep breath, before flicking her gaze towards Bucky, then back to the pod. “It’s very…blank.” She said, frowning. “It’s almost like she is dead, but I felt…pain.” She continued and walked closer to the pod, placing her hand upon the glass door. “It was very dulled pain, but it’s there. She’s scared.”   
Tony crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “Scared? She’s conscious inside this thing?”  
Wanda nodded and Bruce cleared his throat. “She’s in a sort of suspended animation, her body cannot move, but her mind is still alert. It’s quite fascinating.”  
“Are we going to get her out?” Steve asked, standing beside Bucky.  
Fury remained looking at Asset 2.0 for a while, then glanced around at all of the Avengers. “She was mentioned in the files recovered last November as explained by Agent Barton, but her history is a lot more in-depth than that. She has been around longer than the Winter Soldier.” He gave a pointed look towards Bucky. “But was never experimented on until after the Winter Soldier was created.”   
The Avengers all looked at each other, except for Natasha, in confusion. Natasha stepped forward to look at her teammates. “Her name was Y/F/N Y/L/N. She’s been within cryo since the beginning of the first world war. Only been let out a few years at a time, for only a week or two, as described by her reports. She’s got an extraordinary set of attributes.” Tony’s eyebrows shot up and Natasha glared at him. “She was given a round of the super serum after it had been tested upon Barnes, but then she underwent continued DNA experimentation.”  
Bucky looked at the woman in the pod, who he now knew to be called Y/N, and pushed his metal hand through his brown hair. “So why was she left in that facility? They can’t have just discarded her if she’s supposed to be so powerful.” He asked.  
Natasha shook her head. “All mention of her did not exceed past 1995. It’s as if she fell off the radar.”   
“If we wanted to know what happened, we’d have to ask her.” Tony walks towards a control panel that he had hooked up to the cryo pod and pressed onto a red button. “You’d best be ready.” He said to the other occupants of the room.


	2. Asset 2.0, Part Two

The Avengers waited around for a while as the pod ‘defrosted’-as Tony liked to put it. It seemed to take days, when it had only really been half a day.  
It was well into the evening when everyone was once again called up into the room in which the Asset resided. Bucky was one of the last to walk in and his gaze was immediately drawn to the cryo pod, which was now clear of the ice mixture, leaving behind an unconscious woman. The only way they knew she was still alive was the soft beeping from a heart monitor mounted by the pod. It was slowly getting stronger, so they knew that it wouldn’t take long for the woman to wake up.  
All too soon the door to the pod swung open, everyone took a big step back.  
The woman inside gave off a small twitch, everyone held their breath.  
Then her fingers started to move and her eyes blinked a few times before remaining open, trying to steady her vision and waiting for it to stop being blurry.  
Fury stood at the front of the group of agents and kept a level expression on his face as the woman continued to wake up.  
Y/N’s eyes shifted around the room, her E/C gaze following the movement from each person sharply. She didn’t talk, didn’t show any sort of expression, she just simply watched. Bruce took a step back as he started to feel unnerved by the woman’s sharp eyes.  
“I am director Nick Fury of SHIELD.” Fury said, his hands behind his back. “What is your name?” He asked her.  
Y/N turned her head sharply towards him and tilted her head to the side slowly. “Do I have one?” She said slowly and quietly, taking a step out of the pod. “Did they give me one?” Her slow speech unnerved everyone that stood in the room.  
“Your name is Y/F/N Y/L/N.” Natasha said.  
Y/N’s head then turned to face Natasha in one swift movement and she raised her eyebrows. “If you knew, why did you ask?” She said. “SHIELD…I do not know the name.”  
“Do you know Hydra?” Steve asked from his place beside Bucky, who gripped onto his shoulder.  
Y/N’s head tilted to the side and rolled on her shoulder so she could look to Steve. “I may.” Is all she said.  
“Do you know the Winter Soldier?”  
Again. “I may.” Y/N took careful steps towards Bucky and Steve, who both froze as she approached. “It…is faded.” She said. “I know, yet I do not.” She allowed a cryptic smile to cross her face. “My…mind feels like it is empty. I feel-“ Y/N stopped speaking abruptly and she turned towards Wanda so fast that no-one saw it coming, she ran at her and stood very close to her face, but did not touch her. Fury threw a hand up towards everyone to get them to stay where they were. Natasha put a hand on the gun at her hip.  
Y/N was a little taller than Wanda and looked down at her, remaining expressionless while Wanda’s eyes were impossibly wide. The others watched as Y/N’s eyes searched Wanda’s. “You…are telepathic?” She pronounced the last word extremely carefully, pronouncing every letter smoothly. Her voice was almost accent-less, but gave a slight English pronunciation. No where in the files had it said where she had been born, it could have been England.  
“Y-yes.” Wanda stammered out.  
“Hm.” Y/N took a step back and smiled at her. “You’ll find nothing but emptiness inside my head.” She continued, as Y/N went to turn around, Wanda stood up straighter.  
“You’re scared.” She said, making Y/N stop instantly. “I could see that.”  
Y/N turned back to Wanda and stared at her. “Oh? And what am I scared of?”  
Wanda clenched her fists and looked directly into her eyes, pushing down her own feelings of fear. “You’re scared that you don’t know who you are, you’re scared that you will never find out. I-I can help you.” She said.  
Y/N laughed humourlessly. “I don’t need your help.” She lifted her fist, but was promptly shot in the shoulder by Natasha and hit over the head by Steve’s shield. Y/N’s body fell to the ground and Bucky felt something stir in the back of his mind, he somehow thought that he recognised this woman.  
“That’s one fucked up woman.” Tony said. “That sure went well.”


	3. Asset 2.0, Part Three

Wanda read over the files that Natasha had collected from the SHIELD archives, it was everything that they knew about this woman, Y/N. Bucky walked into the common room to find her and glanced at the clock, it was almost two in the morning. Wanda looked up at him and smiled, pushing out a chair from the table she was resting on for him to sit down.  
“You’re up late.” He said.  
“Or you could say I’m up very early.” Her Sokovian accent was thicker from exhaustion. “It’s just, something isn’t right.” She continued. Bucky had felt the exact same when he had witnessed the event from when Y/N had been woken up. Wanda pushed a file towards him and used her pen to point to a specific passage. The passage was in German, with phrases in Russian thrown in. “It says here that Y/N was born within the Hydra facility, but-“ Wanda pulled another file towards him. “In his file is says that she came to the facility when she was nineteen years old, before that she was at a different facility within Siberia from the age of three.” Wanda looked at Bucky and sighed. “These are Hydra documents, they contradict themselves.”  
“Where they found in the same location?” Bucky asked, sitting forward to get a better look at the files.  
Wanda shook her head. “No, this first one was found in the raid from last November and this latter file was found almost forty years ago in a different unnamed location.” She explained.  
“Unnamed?” Bucky asked.  
Wanda nodded her head. “The location was removed from the SHIELD archives by Fury when the events surrounding the Accords started to happen.”  
“We’ll need to talk to him then.”  
Wanda nodded again and started sifting through the rest of the files, Bucky stood up and went into the kitchen to make them both some coffee, it seemed like they wouldn’t be sleeping for the rest of the night. After a few minutes he re-joined her at the table and passed her one of the cups filled with the bitter coffee, Wanda sent him a grateful smile and wrapped her hands around the cup.  
Bucky broke the silence that they had fallen into. “What did you see?” He asked, Wanda raised an eyebrow at him. “When you looked inside her head.”  
Wanda took a sip of her coffee and put down her pen, which she was using to make important notes from Y/N’s files. “At first it was pretty blank, like she said, but then I shifted around a bit more and I started to see flickers of memories. Only partial memories. Its like if you had gripped onto a photograph while someone else had tried to snatch it away from you, leaving you with a torn corner. I could feel that she was gripping onto this memories.” Wanda leaned her cheek onto her closed fist and sighed. “I think she only noticed I was in there when I got too deep, but then again, the whole time I had a sense that she was…aware. But then why didn’t she stop me sooner?” Wanda asked more to herself than to Bucky.  
“Maybe she wants help, like you said she is scared, maybe she wants to know who she is and where she came from.” Bucky voiced his thoughts and paused. “I think I may have met her.” He said.  
Wanda looked at him sharply and let out a breath. “It’s possible. Let’s start with talking to Fury first, before we then go to the cells and have another chat with Y/N.”  
________________

Bucky stood in front of Fury with Steve and Wanda at his side. Wanda had filled Steve in on everything they had been discussing and reading about, so he wanted to be involved if his best friend was. Fury sat back in his chair behind his desk and laced his fingers together, giving each of the three agents a long look. “You want me to disclose such an important piece of information such as the location of the original files, which I had gone through a lot of trouble to erase, on the small hunch that maybe it’ll have more information on the dangerous Miss Y/L/N?” Fury asked.  
“Yeah.” Bucky replied.  
“No. That specific facility was wiped clean of anything that could be useful, the only trace of Y/L/N ever having been there was those files.” Fury continued and sat forward in his chair. “I refuse to let you go off into the middle of nowhere on a waste of time mission such as what you are asking me.”  
Steve was about to explain to Fury why Bucky and Wanda thought it would be important, when a dishevelled SHIELD receptionist ran into the office. “Sir.” She shouted out. “The Asset is gone!”   
__________________

Tony stood beside Fury as they stared at the open cell in front of them. “It was supposed to be unbreakable.” Tony explained. “But it looks like there was an epic power surge directed at this cell and it just went kaput.” Fury let out a sigh and turned around to the three agents, Bucky, Wanda and Steve, that had followed him down to the cells where Y/N was supposed to be held.   
“I’ll send the location to Natasha and she’ll take you to that facility.” He said and sent Bucky a hard look. “She may have gone there.”  
“Why?” Wanda asked.  
“Because that is the facility where she spent most of her time. Where she met the Winter Soldier.” He said.


	4. Asset 2.0, Part Four, Final

Y/N held her head as pain hit her like a freight train.  
It had been a few days since she had gotten out of that cell that SHIELD had put her in.  
Y/N looked down at her hands and saw the white vein-like lines covering her hands and arms, she had seen these same lines right before she felt electricity release from her fingertips and hit the forcefield that had covered her cell.   
She lifted her head and stared at the entrance to the building that she had been getting flash memories of ever since they had woken her up from that ice pod. Y/N wipe her sweaty palms upon the black fabric of her t-shirt and felt dried leaves crumble under the weight of her heavy black boots. Y/N took a step into the building and pushed some of her H/C hair behind her ear.  
Her head had started to cause her great pain every time she managed to remember something, most of the memories were small, but none were insignificant.  
Her name was Y/F/N (Y/M/N) Y/L/N. Physically she was in her mid-twenties, but she did not know how long she had been alive. She had no family left. She had grown up in this building. Hydra had killed her parents and the man that she loved. She knew that she had loved once, but she could not recall his face.  
As Y/N wandered through the deserted halls of the building she had spent days trying to get to, she thought back to the man with the metal arm that she had seen at the place she woke up. Somehow she recognised him. But she had also recognised the blonde man that had stuck to his side. Steve Rogers. She knew his name, she had once been told to kill him. Although she no longer felt the urge to.  
Hydra.  
Hydra.  
Hydra.  
Y/N knew that she was once part of Hydra.  
Y/N gripped onto her head and let out a small scream as pain shot through her skull again. She saw an image of a woman, a woman who shared her H/C hair, but had different eyes.   
She fell to her knees to the fall and panted out breath after breath, still clutching her head.  
She saw a man, the man that was in the SHIELD base, the one with the metal arm. He was kissing her cheek.  
Y/N’s hands hit the dirty floor and she took deep breaths. The Winter Soldier. She had known him, possibly loved him. She was still uncertain about it all. She crawled to the wall and used it to steady herself as she stood up. It was all coming back to her too fast now that she had returned to this place.  
Y/N continued walking down corridors and going into rooms. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she knew that she couldn’t stop searching. She was too close to finding out who she truly was.  
_________________

Bucky was the first one to run into the abandoned Hydra facility. He had spent the entire journey with Wanda trying to sift through his own memories to find any bits of information about Y/N that could be of use.  
Wanda had told him that she saw her a lot in his initial memories of Hydra, most had probably been wiped. Bucky knew that Y/N must have been important to him, he knew it when she had first come out of cryo.  
Bucky was soon followed by Steve and Wanda, who were checking that the base truly was abandoned and this all wasn’t just a ploy by Hydra to get their hands on the super soldiers and the enhanced Wanda.   
________________

Y/N was in the middle of opening and slamming filing cabinets and didn’t notice the three agents that had just caught sight of her. Or so they thought.  
Wanda let out a sigh and walked into the room. “There is no use, she knows we’re here.” She explained. Y/N had ignored them and just continued with her rampage to find information or anything that would give her an indication of who she was. “You’ve remembered quite a lot.” Wanda continued and was ignored once again. “N/N.”  
At the nickname, Y/N stopped her aggressive search and looked over at Wanda with a vulnerable look. Her gaze then shifted to Bucky as she took her hand out of one of the filing cabinet drawers, she started walking towards him and then grabbed his metal hand, turning it palm up in order to drop something into his hand. She then moved back to the cabinet and continued her search.   
Bucky looked down, as did Steve and Wanda, and stared at the dog tags that Y/N had dropped into his palm. He turned them over and saw the name, James Buchanan Barnes, written in the middle of them. His eyes widened as he looked up at the form of Y/N.  
“You gave them to me when you were first brought his.” Y/N said quite loudly, as she was still turned away from them. She hadn’t stopped her search. “They were going to destroy them. I found them in my old bedroom, just down the corridor.” Steve nodded to Bucky and took Wanda out of the room in order to go find this bedroom that Y/N was talking about.  
Bucky stroked the metal tags lightly and cleared his throat. “Why did you keep them?” He asked.  
Y/N paused briefly and looked over her shoulder at him. “I loved you.” She stated simply, catching Bucky off guard. She then resumed her search. “We were kept here for a long time, me longer than you.” She knelt down to reach the last draws. “You were thrown into a cell next to my room, we’d made a small hole in the corner and used to speak to each other through it.” She said.  
Bucky looked around the small office that they were in and frowned in disgust at the multitude of dust and spiders that hid in the corners. He didn’t see Y/N pull out a ring from a drawer until he heard her let out a sob. He rushed over to her and put a hand on her shoulder, which she didn’t shake off. Bucky looked at her hand to see a simple wedding band, it looked as if it was made of white gold or maybe platinum.  
“Were we…?” He left the sentence hanging and was surprised when he heard Y/N let out a genuine laugh.  
“No, you idiot.” She said. “When would we have gotten married in here?” She asked, looking up at him with tears down her cheeks. “It was my mum’s, I think, I’ve got a vague memory of her and this ring, she gave it to me when I was first brought here.” Y/N reached up and covered Bucky’s hand that was on her shoulder. “You came about a year later, you were my only friend. I talked you through your nightmares, you used to tell me stories that you had as dreams, but I always thought they were memories that Hydra tried to make you forget. I see you found him, Steve.” She said.  
Bucky squeezed her shoulder lightly. “Yeah, he’s helped me through the Winter Soldier stuff.” He explained. “We can get you through this too.”  
Y/N looked down at the ring and smiled through her tears. “I would like that.” She said. “It’s all been coming back too fast, I feel angry, so angry.” She said, slipping the ring onto her left ring finger. “I’ve got these…powers. I don’t know if I can control them. I have so many questions.” She whispered.  
“You can get through this. We’ll do this. Together.” He said.  
Y/N looked up at him and gave him a small loving look. “Together.” She affirmed.


End file.
